Patten a benchmark

Dave Patten was familiar with the city when asked to come play with the Edmonton Energy.

The California native had previously visited the University of Alberta as a volleyball player to compete in a tournament with Pepperdine University.

He later transferred to Weber State University to play basketball.

"I played in the same college league as (Energy forward) Steve Sir," Patten said. "He went to Northern Arizona and I went to Weber and we were kind of rivals in that league."

When Energy head coach Paul Sir was putting this year's edition of the team together, he remembered the talented six-foot-eight forward that had played against his son in college.

"He played at Weber State and was the MVP in his senior season, which was also Steve's senior season," said Paul Sir.

"We got to know him in Atlanta. Steve was in the three-point competition and Dave was in the dunk competition. He's just a great guy and I love the diversity in his game.

"We made the contact and one of the things that Dave said that really stuck with me is that he wanted to have fun playing again. He'd been playing overseas and a lot of times, that's not a very fun experience. He seems to really be enjoying himself here and he's helping us a great deal."

Heading into their game against the Yamhill High Flyers Friday at the University of Alberta main gym, Patten was averaging just over 15 points and five rebounds per game.

He provides valuable minutes off the bench for the Energy.

"Dave is a deceptively athletic six-foot-eight player," Paul Sir said. "When you see Dave standing around, you'd never think he was six-foot-eight, he's very unassuming.

"But he has tremendous lift in his game and he's very creative in his game. The one thing that Dave does extremely well, is he gets to the rim and he gets to the rim in very creative ways, he gets fouled and gets to the line a lot."

On a team loaded with scoring talent, Patten gives the Energy another option offensively.

He's fit in well with the squad this season and is a reason why they were 11-4 on the year going into the second of a three-game series against the High Flyers.

"I've really enjoyed playing with this group of guys, they're great guys first and foremost and they're great players as well," Patten said. "It's been easy for us to gel and to get along on the court as well as off the court.

"I'm just trying to do whatever I need to in order to help us win. It's easy on this team when a player has a bad half or a bad game, because we have so much talent. But we need to do our best to do anything we can to help the team win, because we can all score, we can all rebound, we can all do everything out there. It's important to try and do everything that we can."

The Energy are currently battling the Los Angeles Lightning and the Albany Legends for top spot in the International Basketball League Continental Division.

"We're getting better," Patten said. "We need to get better every game and keep progressing as team. We're not where we need to be, but we're getting there.

"For a while it was tough to gel and find your role as a player, but we're really starting to get into a groove and starting to play our best basketball."